US Navy 42-Pounder of USS Delaware at Port Hudson

Sep 5

The US Navy 42-Pounder of 70 Hundredweight at Port Hudson State Historic Site is a very rare survivor of the type of heavy gun which was used to arm the lower decks of the United States Navy's largest ships of the line. According to the research of Olmstead et al., this 42 Pounder, Number 169, was carried aboard USS Delaware. It was cast at Bellona Foundry in 1821 and it weighed at manufacture 70-1-02 in Hundredweight (7,870 pounds).

USS Delaware was part of a class of six sister ships built under the terms of the Gradual Increase of the Navy Act of 1816. Although officially 74-gun ships, Delaware and her sisters were quite a bit larger and could mount nearly 100 guns with 42-Pounders on the lower deck, 32-Pounders on the upper deck, and 42-Pounder carronades on the spar deck. Delaware was built at Norfolk and served actively from the late 1820s to the early 1840s. She was one of the ships lost to the bonfire at Norfolk in 1861 as the US Navy evacuated the yard.

In US Navy service, the 42-Pounder was phased out in the 1840s in favor of new heavy 32-Pounders as part of an effort to standardize almost all guns in the fleet around that caliber. In the event, the US Navy's ships of the line saw little service past the end of the Mexican American War and this rearmament remained somewhat notional as the ships in ordinary were not armed.

Some of the old 42-Pounders remained at the Gosport Navy Yard (Norfolk) when Virginia secessionists seized it in April of 1861. Although old fashioned, only the small number of new Dahlgrens captured were clearly more powerful guns, and a number of 42-Pounders were shipped to arm forts around the South. According to a sign at the site, three 42-Pounders became part of the armament of Port Hudson.

This particular 42-Pounder was for years at Fort Pike. It was moved in 1999 to Port Hudson. Videos online show that it has been used for firing demonstrations in recent years